Etheridge Knight (1931 - 1991)

Etheridge Knight (b. April 19, 1931, Corinth, Mississippi--d. March 10, 1991, Indianapolis) was an African-American poet who burst onto the scene in 1968 with his debut volume, Poems from Prison. The book recalls in verse his eight-year-long sentence after Etheridge was arrested for robbery in 1960. A prose version was published in Italian as Voce negre dal carcere, and in English as Black Voices from Prison (1970), which includes other prisoners' writings.

Belly Song and Other Poems (1973) dealt with themes of racism and love. Knight believed the poet was a "meddler" or intermediary between the poem and the reader. He elaborated on this concept in his 1980 work Born of a Woman. The Essential Etheridge Knight (1986) is a compilation of Knight's work.

Knight was married to fellow poet Sonia Sanchez.

The poems are by default sorted according to volume, but you can also choose to sort them alphabetically or by page views.

Page Views	Poem	Comments
2993	A Poem For Myself
2576	As You Leave Me
2489	Feeling Fucked Up	3 Comments
2188	The Idea of Ancestry
1906	Hard Rock Returns To Prison From The Hospital For The Criminal Insane
1169	The Violent Space (Or When Your Sister Sleeps Around For Money)	2 Comments
1114	Dark Prophecy: I Sing Of Shine	1 Comment